What’s Yerba Mate?

Yerba mate is a leafy shrub variety similar to the holly plant and it’s native to South America. Not to be confused with tea, it’s brewed like the beverage and drank from a yerba mate straw with a filter called a bombilla. The bombilla prevents the leaves from seeping through.

The taste is a bit earthy and bitter and it takes some getting used to.

Caffeine Content

Yerba mate doesn’t have quite as much caffeine as coffee, but it has more than tea. An 8-ounce serving of yerba mate has around 85 mg of caffeine and the same size serving of coffee has around 130 mg and green tea has around 50 mg. Although yerba mate has less caffeine than coffee, the energy you get from the drink lasts longer and you won’t feel jittery after consuming it.

Health Benefits

Yerba mate is known as the “Gift of Gods” in South American history because of its healing powers. The beverage contains 24 vitamins and minerals and 15 amino acids! It’s also associated with good heart health, weight loss, and blood sugar management.

The post Have Your Tried Yerba Mate? appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

This hot drink, originally from South America, is an infusion made from the dried leaves of a plant called yerba mate. The beverage produced by these leaves is beloved in countries such as Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, and has started to grow in popularity worldwide.

It can be tough to learn to make a mate the correct way, but it really isn’t that hard! So let’s go for it.

Ingredients

Mate gourd
A “bombilla” (a silver straw that filters)
Yerba mate
Cold water
Hot water (around 180 F), in a thermos

Instructions

Start off by filling your mate cup about 2/3rds of the way full with the yerba mate leaves.

Once you’ve done this, place your palm on top of the mate gourd and begin to gently shake the leaves back and forth a few times. This will help arrange the mate leaves into a “little mountain” that will form an incline inside of the cup once upright.

When you’ve set the cup down and the “little mountain” has formed, filling one half of the cup on an incline, add the silver “bombilla” to the empty side of the gourd, leaning against the “little mountain.”

Fill about half of the empty space with cold water. This will prevent hot water from burning the leaves and producing a bitter mate.

Next, fill the rest of the mate gourd with hot water.

Allow to steep for a couple minutes, and you’re ready to start sipping!

You can keep adding hot water until the beverage loses its flavor.

Enjoy!

The post Here’s How to Prepare a Perfect Mate appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

If so, this person was probably enjoying mate, which is a traditional South American beverage that is particularly popular and beloved in the countries of the Southern Cone region: Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, and some parts of Brazil.

Mate is a drink which is brewed from the leaves of the yerba mate shrub. The indigenous Guaraní and Tupí communities in what is now Paraguay were the first people to use the leaves from this shrub to make what is now known as mate.

The dried leaves from the plant are chopped and ground up into a powdery mixture and then placed in a pot along with hot, but never boiling, water, and the beverage steeps in a way that is very similar to tea.

After a few minutes of brewing time, the beverage is ready to drink. The traditional vessel for mate is a gourd-shaped vase, and people drink it through a straw which contains a filter so that the powdery dried leaves aren’t drunk.

While many people think that mate is bitter and tough to drink, others would simply say that it is an acquired taste, much like coffee. Its high caffeine content and levels of antioxidants are raved about by the many enthusiasts of the beverage.

Have you ever tried mate? What did you think?

The post Mate, South America’s Favorite Hot Beverage appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

What’s Yerba Mate?

Yerba mate is a leafy shrub variety similar to the holly plant and it’s native to South America. Not to be confused with tea, it’s brewed like the beverage and drank from a yerba mate straw with a filter called a bombilla. The bombilla prevents the leaves from seeping through.

The taste is a bit earthy and bitter and it takes some getting used to.

Caffeine Content

Yerba mate doesn’t have quite as much caffeine as coffee, but it has more than tea. An 8-ounce serving of yerba mate has around 85 mg of caffeine and the same size serving of coffee has around 130 mg and green tea has around 50 mg. Although yerba mate has less caffeine than coffee, the energy you get from the drink lasts longer and you won’t feel jittery after consuming it.

Health Benefits

Yerba mate is known as the “Gift of Gods” in South American history because of its healing powers. The beverage contains 24 vitamins and minerals and 15 amino acids! It’s also associated with good heart health, weight loss, and blood sugar management.

The post Have Your Tried Yerba Mate? appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

This hot drink, originally from South America, is an infusion made from the dried leaves of a plant called yerba mate. The beverage produced by these leaves is beloved in countries such as Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, and has started to grow in popularity worldwide.

It can be tough to learn to make a mate the correct way, but it really isn’t that hard! So let’s go for it.

Ingredients

Mate gourd
A “bombilla” (a silver straw that filters)
Yerba mate
Cold water
Hot water (around 180 F), in a thermos

Instructions

Start off by filling your mate cup about 2/3rds of the way full with the yerba mate leaves.

Once you’ve done this, place your palm on top of the mate gourd and begin to gently shake the leaves back and forth a few times. This will help arrange the mate leaves into a “little mountain” that will form an incline inside of the cup once upright.

When you’ve set the cup down and the “little mountain” has formed, filling one half of the cup on an incline, add the silver “bombilla” to the empty side of the gourd, leaning against the “little mountain.”

Fill about half of the empty space with cold water. This will prevent hot water from burning the leaves and producing a bitter mate.

Next, fill the rest of the mate gourd with hot water.

Allow to steep for a couple minutes, and you’re ready to start sipping!

You can keep adding hot water until the beverage loses its flavor.

Enjoy!

The post Here’s How to Prepare a Perfect Mate appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.

If so, this person was probably enjoying mate, which is a traditional South American beverage that is particularly popular and beloved in the countries of the Southern Cone region: Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, and some parts of Brazil.

Mate is a drink which is brewed from the leaves of the yerba mate shrub. The indigenous Guaraní and Tupí communities in what is now Paraguay were the first people to use the leaves from this shrub to make what is now known as mate.

The dried leaves from the plant are chopped and ground up into a powdery mixture and then placed in a pot along with hot, but never boiling, water, and the beverage steeps in a way that is very similar to tea.

After a few minutes of brewing time, the beverage is ready to drink. The traditional vessel for mate is a gourd-shaped vase, and people drink it through a straw which contains a filter so that the powdery dried leaves aren’t drunk.

While many people think that mate is bitter and tough to drink, others would simply say that it is an acquired taste, much like coffee. Its high caffeine content and levels of antioxidants are raved about by the many enthusiasts of the beverage.

Have you ever tried mate? What did you think?

The post Mate, South America’s Favorite Hot Beverage appeared first on falafelandcaviar.com.